Transparencies
by Tsormick
Summary: He's not sure if God is up there, or if he would listen to the pleading of a closeted bully, but Dave prayed that he could vanish on that very spot. He squeezes in on himself, compresses and contracts and wishes. Vanish. Disappear. Evaporate. He finally opens his eyes but he's still wishing so hard that when he blinks, the tip of his index finger gets lost in a haze of desperation.


AN: This was written for the Kurtofsky gift exchange based on this prompt: Kurt helps Dave deal with having some kind of supernatural/supernormal power that he's having trouble controlling. Prefer a power that's either active or leads directly to action (e.g. precognition). Kurt can either share the power or just be a muggle caught up against his will (mild preference for the latter, since it seems more interesting, but optional).

Thanks to Rubylis for beta-ing!

* * *

**Transparencies **

This is so fucking stupid. He's so fucking stupid.

Dave repeats that in his head, _fucking stupid fucking stupid _until the words blend together into a string of _fuck fuck fuck_, each word emphasized by a pounding fist on his steering wheel.

He's got to get out of here.

There's a crack in the corner of his windshield, a small nick from a rock on the freeway, driving too fast on Lima's deserted roads, blaring music that he hates while strung out on his popularity.

That nick spread slowly at first, unnoticeably, but soon it's going to start an upward spiral, racing its way through his field of vision.

Tonight was the start of another crack.

He didn't dance. He didn't fucking dance to that gay shit back in the gym. But he walked up to his flaming queen, parted the sea of his classmates, breath shallow like he was drowning in that room, his ears ringing with the silence of everyone's anticipation.

Then ABBA started and his heart was beating in time with the 80's pop hit, hard and fast and deafening.

The beat was inescapable.

Kurt's eyes smashed into his, a crystal blue iceberg. Buried beneath the surface, under that cold blue, a murmur that traveled the expanse between them: larger than anything that had happened so far, what would truly sink him: _come out._

He's not sure if God is up there, or if he would listen to the pleading of a closeted bully, but Dave prayed that he could vanish on that very spot.

Instead, he fucking _bolted_ out of that room like the piece of shit that he is. His eyes wet, his palms wet, the door slamming unapologetically on his way out.

His car is stale with his ragged breaths. This is the turning point. This is the moment when the whispers start and he knows what happens with whispers. That shit gets out. Gets loud.

He desperately wants to be gone when that happens.

He squeezes in on himself, compresses and contracts and _wishes_.

Vanish.

Disappear.

Evaporate.

Fucking stupid fuck fuck fuck.

He finally opens his eyes but he's still wishing so hard that when he blinks, the tip of his index finger gets lost in a haze of desperation.

He slams his car into reverse and before he can blink a second time, he's out of there. Away from this parking lot. Away from his life.

* * *

Adrenaline races through Kurt's veins. He's too far gone for tears. Every second that passes by is a forgotten memory, whisked away from the fury pounding in his ears and the anxious, shattering thump of his heart.

His words reverberate through him and he trembles with the echoes of _Come out. Make a difference_. The words slip through him the same way they slipped out of him. Ignorantly. Thoughtlessly. Obtrusively working their way into Dave Karofsky's tear ducts.

If Dave Karofsky were a balloon, he would not be a perky, bright helium balloon. He would be a drab blue or an unimpressive yellow. Partially deflated, weathered and inconspicuous. As the energy seeps out, there's less _pop_. _'Come out'_ didn't cause a _pop_; it was more of a fizzling out, an abject surrender to the anticipated apex of their coronation.

That fizzling out was what really got to Kurt. It shouldn't have been a note-worthy change, but it caused something to seep out of Kurt, too. Some small amount of defiance that was blindly aimed at the whole world as Kurt knew it to exist within the confines of Lima, Ohio.

"You're amazing," Blaine breathes into Kurt's ear, a spark from the queen's crown matching up with the gold in Blaine's eyes.

Kurt nods dismissively as Mercedes and Santana's voices finish ringing through the dilapidated McKinley sound system.

After the song, Santana approaches him. Arms crossed: a velvety, golden brown taut against a provocative red.

"Where is he?" Santana demands, poised like a warrior. Not like a queen.

"Who?" Kurt asks.

Santana raises her eyebrows and cocks her head. Her arms tighten against her chest, the curve of her sleek frame made hostile with the incredulity of one single word: "Karofsky?"

Kurt shakes his head. Above him, some crepe paper falls and blows helplessly in a welcome breeze.

"I didn't see where he went," Kurt says.

"What do you mean, you didn't see where he went?" Santana asks, irritation rising.

Kurt shakes his head again. He's still wearing his crown.

Brittany approaches, a sweet smile on her pink, glittery face.

Santana eyes Kurt's crown with disdain, and when she speaks, it's directed at that, not his face. "My coat is in his car," she snarls through curled lips. As though it's his fault that he got the votes and she didn't. As though he planned this.

"I haven't seen him," Kurt repeats, defiantly staring into eyes that won't meet his.

"No one has," Santana says. Then Brittany whisks her away, but not before Santana can eye that cumbersome ring of plastic one last time.

* * *

Dave takes his truck to ludicrous speed, so desperate to escape any chance of being seen. He drives in the direction of home. Then he remembers that his parents live there, and will ask questions, and it's way too early for him to be back if he was having fun like he was supposed to be. He drives in the direction of a dirt road that leads to a wasteland of former farm property, but then he remembers that that's also a make-out spot and, being prom, is most likely full of horny classmates.

Then he just drives.

He drives east on I-75 for a good twenty miles or so before pulling into a McDonald's parking lot. There are a couple other cars there, but no one who will recognize him. He's safe.

He still wants so badly to not exist.

He's delaying the inevitable. He's delaying his classmates judging him and watching him and questioning him. And it will all be done without a sound. It will be in the hesitant way that his friends greet him. It will be in the scowling way the cheerleaders rake their eyes over him, thinking _it's no wonder he never dated us._

But all he's really delaying is bearing witness.

The talking and the questioning and the speculating and the ill-formed conclusions. It's all happening right now.

The tightness is back. Well, it never really left. But he's hyper-cognizant of it as he sits in his parked car, no longer distracted, however menially, by his drive.

His chest is constricted like he's encased in something heavy, like gravity is pressing in on him with increased force.

A tingling starts from his fingertips. The pressure is lulling his body parts to sleep.

He's exhausted. Anger and sadness and adrenaline can have that effect on you. Drain you.

He curls his fingers into a fist, pumping a few times to get the blood back. Then he shakes out his hands when the feeling persists.

The tingling reaches up to his third knuckle, right at the base of his fingers.

He examines his hands closer, lifting them to within a foot of his face, squinting to make out any abnormalities. It's hard to see clearly with the solitary, dim street light outside the parking lot.

As he watches his hands, the light becomes more and more visible, not through the distance between his fingers, but _through his fingers_.

There's light shining through his fingers.

Shit.

Like that will stop people from talking.

* * *

Monday after prom and posters for prom court are purposefully torn down. Not from a demeaning peer but ripped off the wall by a loser. No one wants to lobby for something that they already lost.

Dave thinks about taking his down like everyone else, then thinks that maybe he should keep them up because he did win, then thinks again about taking them down because he doesn't want to act like he's proud of winning prom king alongside Lady Hummel. Dave is more a man of inaction than action, so he leaves the posters up. For now.

He's decked out in synthetic red and stripes of white, a ridiculous candy-cane colored mascot who thought he was preventing the bullying that's still happening.

He walks alone. He stares straight ahead. Don't look anyone in the eye and you don't see them staring.

His walkie-talkie crackles to life in his pocket.

"Karofsky—hey, Karofsky." It's Santana. "Do you copy, over?"

"What d'you want?" he growls back, voice low.

"You're on duty after third period. Say 'over' when you're done talking."

He lifts the warm, black plastic to his mouth and catches the eye of a quiet cheerleader, who he knows by face but not name. She averts her eyes as soon as soon as he notices her looking.

The tingling is back, inching its way up his arms and his legs, crawling up his body, nearly meeting at his compressed chest.

He says, "No I'm not," into the mouth of the outdated technology.

"Like fuck you're not, Hulk," Santana replies quickly, scathingly. "And my coat is in that piece of shit that you call a car. I want it back. Over."

Dave hears Kurt say, "Santana, if he doesn't want to—" before the walkie-talkie clicks and cuts out completely.

A bell signals five minutes until class starts and Dave is vanishing in the middle of a crowded hallway.

* * *

"Hey Raggedy Ann, you owe me five dollars for yesterday's lunch money," Azimio Adams calls conversationally to Brett-the-stoner as he passes him in the hallway.

"Hey Adams," Santana calls, voice and eyes hard. "I think you want to apologize."

Azimio stops in his tracks and turns around— not slowly like facing prey, but quickly, like a champion.

He says "I don't think I do," almost flippantly, but his words don't belie him. Azimio Adams is equal parts insolent, aggressive and (to Kurt's utter disdain,) charismatic. That's what makes him so dangerous. "You see, Karofsky's abandoned his post. And J-Lo, you ain't no threat to me."

"I'm about to be your own personal threat—" Santana starts, ready for a long tirade.

Azimio laughs. He laughs and walks away.

"He is _not_ allowed to abandon his post," Santana says ferociously to Kurt because everyone else has gone to class and there's no one else to rant to.

"Santana," Kurt sighs. "What's the point anymore? You lost prom queen. Give it up. You're not winning anything by continuing this charade."

Santana snaps, "This is about pride."

"For who?" Kurt asks.

"Like I care about _your_ pride. The Bullywhips are sticking around prom court or no, because Santana Lopez is not a quitter. And if Karofsky is too much of a pussy to stick it out with me then he can suck it. I'll do it alone. Now get in that door." She points into Kurt's psychology classroom.

Kurt goes into class willingly after that. He's going to take advantage of every Santana-less moment that he can find.

* * *

Kurt hates psychology.

Well, actually, he loves psychology. He loathes the class.

His teacher Mr. Wells is unpredictable. He oscillates between spending too much time on basic concepts to glazing over complex concepts. Occasionally he'll get balance right, but usually no one notices because the class exists primarily in a state of boredom or confusion. Those don't exactly breed good learning habits.

Still, Kurt tries his best to listen. He prides himself on being an A student, after all.

Mr. Wells describes something called "normopathy."

"Normopaths will pursue social acceptance and conformity at the expensive of all individuality. Normopathy is governed by a fear of separation, loss or otherness, and if the strain becomes too much for the normopath, he or she will often have adverse reactions."

And that's how Mr. Wells transitions into discussing anxiety disorders. A fleeting moment of something interesting, something that's relevant to high school life, and then it's lost amongst last week's mundane curriculum.

* * *

Kurt shakes off Santana after psychology by entering the only place he's –relatively—sure she won't follow him. The boys' bathroom.

He didn't expect to actually miss Dave walking him to class, but the silent passing periods were becoming tolerable and more importantly, it meant a break from Santana.

There's one other guy in the bathroom and he curls his lip at Kurt while he zips up his fly and stalks out the door. Without washing his hands. Gross.

Kurt goes into the stall even though he's alone. It's become a habit for him. He can't stand the way his peers look at him when he uses a urinal—like they think he's trying to shove his gay down their throats by whipping out his dick.

The bathroom door opens and slams shut. He hears some labored breathing, slowing down to a forced calm, and the creak of the faucet turning on. A splash of water against skin. Under the door, some worn jeans and dirty sneakers.

Kurt flushes and the guy slams the faucet off.

The clanking of the lock on the stall door is only sound that snakes its way through the stained bathroom save for the guy's breathing, which is quieter but still fast, still uneasy.

With a jerk down to pick up his backpack the guy is ready to burst out of there, and that's when Kurt gets his first look at him.

"David?" Kurt says, pushing past the stall door.

Dave Karofsky freezes in his tracks, mid-sprint on his way out of the bathroom. He wants to ask why Kurt is getting his attention. He wants to ask if Kurt cares that he's not a bullywhip anymore. He wants to ask if Kurt danced with his boyfriend at prom. Instead, what Dave says is "What," not a question, but a challenge.

"You ran off, at prom."

Dave blinks at him and stuffs his hands in his pockets, pulling the edges of his letterman tight against himself. He's not used to wearing his letterman—he'd grown to like his bullywhip's jacket, with its lightweight, breathable fabric. It's a coat that belongs to someone he was proud of. The wool and faux-leather of his letterman feel alien to him now, and hot in the late spring air. It's the jacket of a someone who conformed. It's the jacket of someone he hated. It weighs on him, suppressing him, expediting the fuzziness in his limbs. The more he holds onto that feeling of who he used to be in the jacket, the more he feels himself slipping away completely.

Play it cool. Relax.

"Yeah?" Dave says. "I didn't want to dance with you."

_It looked like you did,_ Kurt doesn't say. "I shouldn't have said that to you."

"Said what?" Dave asks to see if Kurt will admit to it, to telling Dave to come out in front of everyone.

"I was feeling reckless after claiming the crown and I knew you weren't ready."

OK, so that's how's Kurt's going to play. He's just going to allude to what happened, not actually say it.

"Whatever," Dave says. His skin is hot and cold, and itches like he's covered in ants. He makes his way to the door a second time.

Kurt blocks the exit. "No, not 'whatever'." I'm apologizing."

"And I'm saying 'whatever', apology accepted. It doesn't matter." Nothing matters in the grand scheme of things except for the 'Nothing' that Dave is becoming.

"It matters to me, David. Because I know that things are hard for you. I know that you're struggling. And I know that what I said—it wasn't the time or the place, and it's none of my business. And now that you're not a bullywhip anymore, I'm concerned about you." Kurt licks his lips and raises his eyes up to meet Dave's. "As a—" he hesitates, wills the word forward—"friend."

Dave almost laughs. It's funny, really. How Kurt struggles to call themselves friends and how Dave yearns for it to be true. They're acquaintances at best, and Dave's body is recoiling from this conversation, from this room.

Kurt steps closer to Dave, eyeing the still quick rise and fall of Dave's chest, before his gaze falls to the floor. "I just don't think you should be so hard on yourself after what happened. The coronation, and then what I said to you. Most guys would have reacted the same way you did."

What a neat little box Dave fits in: the "most guys" category. "You didn't," Dave reminds him, and fuck if he's going to cry in _the_ _boys' bathroom._

Kurt presents him with a small, sad smile, before saying, "As society loves to remind me, I'm not like 'most guys'."

"You're not," Dave agrees with him. And as he agrees, he slides farther away from himself.

"We should get to class," Kurt says, by means of breaking off from the strained conversation. "We're probably really late—" And just like that, words stop flowing to Kurt's brain because _Dave's arm is gone._ Kurt stares hard at Dave's coat, trying to find the missing appendage and failing. Dave, for what it's worth, tries to subtly wrangle himself into a position that would create some kind of optical illusion of his arm being gone.

"Gotta go to class," Dave mumbles, ready to evacuate the bathroom to get away from Kurt's look of immense confusion, but not ready to enter the hallway lest more people see him. He makes a move for the door anyway.

Kurt grabs his shoulder from behind, feeling his way down Dave's arm while Dave attempts to shake him off. "What?—Where?" is all that Kurt can manage as it becomes clearer that Dave's arm, while still physically attached, is in fact invisible. "How—how are you doing that?" Kurt stammers, seemingly unaware that although Dave's arm is invisible, he's still holding onto it.

Dave shakes his head slowly. Kurt's hand is firm on his forearm despite the bulk from his jacket. "I don't know," Dave whispers. Kurt's eyes are wide with confusion and the longer that Dave stares at them, the more he feels tethered to that spot, bound by the intense blue of Kurt's irises and the solid grip on his arm. Some of the blurriness fades from his nerves.

Then Kurt lets go.

Because he's good at running away when things get too hairy or too confusing, that's what Dave does.

* * *

Azimio will stand outside a classroom until ten seconds before the bell rings to avoid being in class any longer than he has to be and still barely make it there on time.

When Dave rushes down the hall to chemistry, he finds Azimio staring at a cheerio's ass while she bends down to get a textbook out of a lower locker. Figures.

Azimio gives him a once-over and punches his letterman appreciately before sauntering into the classroom.

Dave takes his seat and the guy sitting next to Dave, a JV footballer, mutters "faggot" in his direction.

Azimio's eyes lock on the guy. Azimio looks calm, collected and dangerous. It means he has a plan. His plans are usually illegal and always destructive. In the past, his endeavors have included: throwing pee balloons at passersby, leaving flaming bags of shit on people's doorsteps, breaking into their teammates' cars and swapping out all of their CD's with the Titanic soundtrack.

"David. Are you going to answer the question?"

Dave jerks his head up and stares gape-mouthed at his chemistry teacher. "What?" The fingers on his left hand feel tingly and unresponsive. He's tried pumping his fist and shaking out his hand as subtly as possible, but the feeling has persisted since he became fully visible in the bathroom with Kurt.

His teacher, Ms. Chao, jabs at the white board with her marker, where a question from their previous chemistry test sits waiting.

"Um, yeah," Dave answers. Everyone else has their chemistry test in front of them.

"Then would you mind?" she says impatiently, holding out the marker for him to take.

He feels like he's moving in slow motion, backing out of his desk to retrieve the marker.

Ms. Chao eyes him skeptically. "David is going to explain to all of you how to properly balance this equation, since he is the only one out of all of you who managed to get it right on the test. I strongly suggest taking notes, something the majority of you fail to do on a daily basis."

She just called him smart. Ms. Chao just called him smart in front of the entire class.

Everyone's eyes are on him and it causes a burning on his neck and a fog in his head.

He works through it. He uncaps the pen and begins to write, squeaking his way down the white board.

From the back row, Azimio snickers. If McKinley had better curriculum and offered AP chemistry like a normal high school, then they wouldn't share a class. But McKinley only has one level of chemistry and the two friends landed themselves in the same period.

"Explain what you're doing, David." Ms. Chao's voice halts his pen when he's halfway through the equation.

Dave licks his lips, sucks in a deep breath, and begins to explain, very quickly, because the whole class is watching him, because the teacher is watching him, because Azimio won't stop snickering.

Azimio catches up with him after class and stalls him while their peers file out of the Chemistry room. "Dude, the fuck is wrong with you?"

Dave scowls. "Nothing." Dave glances at Ms. Chao while she stacks some papers on her desk. She doesn't acknowledge their conversation.

"Like fuck." Azimio allots Dave two seconds to explain. When Dave doesn't offer anything else, Azimio adds, "It's this prom thing."

Dave wants to retort "What prom thing?" but Azimio called him out once and he would do it again.

"Man, shit's going around. And the way I see it, you gotta do something to get your cred back."

"'Shit's going around'?" Dave repeats sarcastically, because duh. He can practically see it spreading.

Azimio backs toward the door as he continues. This conversation is not intended to last long. "We all thought you were going to waltz with Her Royal Highness. You gotta do something to prove that those glee losers don't own you. That Hummel hasn't gotten his gay on you. Break into the choir room. Deface their shit."

"What? No! I'm not ruining their property."

They're in the hallway now.

"Hey, I thought you were through with being a bullywhip."

"I'm not ruining their property."

Azimio rounds the corner to stop at his locker on the way to his English class. "I thought you'd say that," he says, but he doesn't sound defeated.

That's not a good sign.

It's no less than Dave was expecting.

* * *

Occasionally in psychology Mr. Wells comes back to normopathy. He talks about how normopaths spend so much energy dedicated to acting like what they think it means to be "normal" that consequently they have no discernible personality.

They're a vessel for everyone else's opinions.

How does a person survive inside of that?

How does a person survive outside of that? Once the desperation behind trying so hard to blend in wears off, he vanishes. He is literally vanishing.

Kurt doesn't see Dave again for another three days. When he finally glimpses Dave, it's fleeting. Nothing more than a wisp of Dave turning around a corner. At least, he's pretty sure it's Dave. It's hard to tell now that Dave has returned to wearing his letterman jacket. It blends in more. Kurt's sure that's intentional.

In Glee, they gear up for nationals. They talk about being different and how that makes them strong. How that makes them winners.

Mr. Shue lines up their trophies to show how far they've come. Sectionals trophies followed by regionals trophies with an empty spot at the end for where their nationals trophy will sit.

These menial trophies represent everything they have to be proud of. Everything that they've worked for.

Most of them have never had trophies before. Most of them never felt like they deserved a trophy.

This room has changed all of that.

* * *

Azimio won't fucking shut up about breaking into the choir room. He texts Dave, over and over, "5 2nite," expecting Dave to be waiting around at school until the time of their heist.

Dave doesn't commit. Saying no would only lead to an increased effort on Azimio's part because he's a stubborn asshole.

Ignoring Azimio until school lets out will be difficult, but it's better than the alternative, which, aside from being theft, will threaten his reinstatement at McKinley and more importantly, revoke Kurt's forgiveness.

Then Dave sees the notes in his locker.

"_Hows life at the fudge packing plant?"_

"_Karofsky bites the pillow for his majesty"_

"_Butt-fucker"_

It's coming again. He can feel it. He's buzzing all over, worse than ever before. Each breath causes the loss of a finger, a toe.

He races to the bathroom, leaving his chemistry book in his locker, leaving his locker wide open.

Of course Kurt is in the bathroom. Of course he is. Is this becoming some kind of fucking ritual? They never met up in here before. Unless Kurt is only now coming here. Unless he's coming here in case he sees Dave.

Long-shot.

There's no Dave left to see.

The red and white of Dave's letterman is the last to fade.

"_David_!" Kurt exclaims, voice hushed, while he sprints to Dave's side. Hands still wet, faucet running. "Oh my god, David." Kurt reminds himself that he's awake, that David Karofsky just completely vanished in front of him, that this crazy, supernatural thing is actually happening.

"Kurt," Dave pleads, as he flickers in and out of focus. "I don't know what's happening to me."

As if Kurt has any more answers than Dave does.

"When? How?" Kurt asks through his bewilderment. He reaches for a part of Dave, fumbling blindly. Part of him wants to get out his cell phone, because talking to a person who you can't see is much less disconcerting with a phone in your hand.

Kurt finds Dave's right bicep with his right hand, (at least, that's his best guess based on Dave's height) and his left hand falls against the bathroom wall. He shifts, transferring his left hand to Dave's bicep, letting his right hand fall uselessly by his side.

"After prom," Dave whispers. "It was like a catalyst, I don't know. I just thought about how I would give anything to not be around when everything started happening-" Dave comes back to Kurt, just a little bit, enough that Kurt can see where he's touching Dave. (Higher up on Dave's arm than he was expecting. Dave is slouching).

"When everything started happening?"

"Don't play dumb."

"Dave, what are you talking about?"

"Don't act like you don't know."

Kurt drops his hand. Steps back. "Fine. Be insolent. I have to go to class," he says. "I'm going to be late."

"Good," Dave says as his anger colors him. "Leave."

Kurt stares at Dave as he comes alive. Dave's anger impassions him.

"Kurt, I didn't mean—things are really hard, people keep expecting to be someone I'm not, and—"

"The thing with being someone you're not," Kurt replies slowly, so the words sink into Dave's brain, "is that first you have to decide what kind of 'someone' you are. And that means deciding who you want to impress."

Kurt leaves Dave alone in the bathroom, where Dave's anger flickers and fades, the solitary candle that kept him lit.

* * *

The one place that Kurt cannot escape Santana is Glee. She tosses a balled-up piece of notebook paper in his face, which he unfurls to read a welcoming: _Butt-fucker._ "Thanks," Kurt says drily, plunging the offensive paper into the trash.

"Not for you," she says, like he should have figured that out. She lowers her voice. "I found it outside of Dave's locker. Along with vandalism worthy of a terrorist attack."

_I thought about how I would give anything to not be around when everything started happening._

"Santana, has Dave said anything to you about this?"

"No," she says, as outwardly apathetic as Santana always is. "And that Jockstrap still has my coat." She takes her seat next to Brittany, ponytail swishing behind her.

Kurt wonders if there are other notes, and if they are worse, and what a worse note might say about someone like Dave.

* * *

Dave doesn't come back for the rest of the day. He hides in the bathroom and counts the bells until school is out. It's easier to hide in there than to risk going out into the hallway and bumping into people. Plus, he left his locker open, and he really doesn't want to see what that turned into.

Staying invisible means that avoiding Azimio will be a shit ton easier. He'll just wait it out.

So he waits.

Once the final bell rings, he gives it another ten minutes to be sure that everyone is gone, and he emerges from his cave.

The contents of his locker are miraculously cleaned up. There's a smear of ketchup on the floor in front of his locker, but he tries to attribute that to coincidence, and he doesn't open his locker again for fear of what he might find inside.

He's still gone, so he walks home. Leaving his car at school is suspicious, but no more so than seeing a car driving with no driver inside.

Plus, he doesn't live that far away.

Azimio calls him eleven times after school lets out, up through six o'clock. Dave doesn't answer any of the calls.

Dave's dad is working late like he usually does, and his mom is out doing whatever it is that she does when she doesn't want to be around her family (re: son) so he's home alone.

Until Azimio, the obnoxious shithead that he is, rings Dave's doorbell at 6:23.

Dave is himself once again, fully opaque in the sanctuary of his room. He ignores Azimio ringing his doorbell. He doesn't want to hear about it.

Azimio practically breaks the door down knocking, then there's the click and creak of the doorknob turning, and Azimio is in his house.

The fucker is in his house.

Dave double-checks his browser for porn (no open windows and nothing on his web history, thank god he wipes it so frequently) and that's as long as it takes for Azimio to reach his bedroom door.

Azimio doesn't knock before bursting into his room, with a "the fuck, man?" Az is holding a Glee trophy in one hand and he's got a backpack full of several more.

"How the hell did you get in my house?" Dave yells.

"Dude, I'm _helping you_."

"How the hell did you get in my house?" Dave yells again.

Azimio gapes at him. "I turned the doorknob."

"The door was _locked_."

"Whatever, man." Azimio tosses the trophy at him and throws down his backpack on Dave's bed. "I got these without your help, because you're a shitface who needs all the help he can get right now. Also, who the fuck leaves his car at school? And where have you been? Skipping classes? The hell has gotten into you. Never mind. Here's what you're going to do."

"I'm not doing it."

Azimio blinks at him. "Excuse me?" he asks, almost politely, like maybe he heard Dave wrong. When Dave doesn't repeat himself (or offer up a different answer) Azimio barks, "Do you know what kind of friend I've been to your sorry ass?"

"Yeah? Did you clean up my locker for me?" Dave says, trying to sound belligerent, trying to act like it's a throw-away question. But the truth is he really does want to know.

"Your locker?"

Azimio has no idea what Dave is talking about. So it wasn't him then.

"Listen, man. I'm going to pretend like the last five minutes didn't happen, because otherwise I'm going to get really pissed off. You want my plan or not?"

No, Dave doesn't want his plan. "What's the plan?"

"You tie some rope to these 'trophies'—" he makes air-quotes for emphasis—"and drive them through the school parking lots. At lunchtime."

"Sure, whatever. I'll do it." Whatever it takes to get Azimio to go away.

"Good," Azimio drawls, eyeing Dave skeptically. "You'll do it."

"Did I fucking stutter?"

"You'll do it," Azimio says cynically.

"I'll fucking do it. Now get the fuck out. I got shit to do."

Azimio backs away. "You'll do it. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Dave promises.

"At lunch."

"Yeah, lunch. Whatever."

Azimio gives him a long, calculating stare.

Dave's hands start to twitch.

Finally, Azimio turns away.

Dave slams the door against his retreating back.

_Fuck_, he doesn't want to do this.

* * *

Word gets out after first period that their trophies are gone. Rachel is the one who informs everyone, unsurprisingly. She must have gone to the choir room before school. Again, not a surprise.

This time, Kurt is taking Santana with him into the boys' bathroom.

He pokes his head in to make sure no one else is in there, and then he beckons her in.

"Like I've never been in the boys' bathroom before," she drawls.

Kurt rolls his eyes.

He checks under the stalls. No feet. "Dave?" he calls, ignoring Santana's look of _Have-you-gone-insane?_

To make Santana even more skeptical of his sanity, he throws out his arms and feels his way through the air. "Dave, I know you're here."

Dave _is_ in the bathroom and Kurt does not sound friendly. It's made even worse by Santana's presence.

Kurt keeps getting closer. Dave is left with nowhere to go but into a stall, lest Kurt _and Santana_ find him.

Dave's shoe squeaks against a streak of mud on the floor and he slips on a bit of discarded toilet paper.

"Kurt," Santana protests while she studies her nails. "This is a waste of—"

"_I heard him."_

Shit.

Kurt follows the sound into the stall, flailing until he grabs hold of some part of Dave, then he draws back and punches him. Not hard enough to bruise, not really hard enough to even hurt, but enough to shock Dave into a startled "Hey!" He gets the distinct impression that Kurt's goal was not to maim him, but to get him to reveal himself. It worked exactly as planned.

Santana jerks her head up and her eyes go wide. "No shit," she says, which quickly leads into: "Where the fuck are our trophies?"

Dave rises to his full height, not like it matters because they can't see him.

But they're starting to be able to.

"I didn't take your fucking trophies." Disregard the fact that he has them stashed in his car.

"Then explain to me why they're gone," Kurt interrogates him, "when the school locks up at 4:30 and none of the teachers saw anyone take the trophies, and your car was the last student car in the parking lot."

"I didn't take them. And I left my car here overnight, so back off."

Kurt and Santana exchange glances. They don't believe him.

Dave's in full view now as he continues. "Why would I want your trophies anyway? They aren't even good ones."

Kurt replies, in a clipped tone, "I can think of one good reason why you would take them."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Your reputation," Kurt answers.

To which Santana adds, "A reputation that, by the way, you told me hated. Nice letterman." She's wearing her bullywhip's jacket and it mocks him.

"I didn't take them."

Santana stares at him the same way Azimio stares at him: like they can tell that he's lying and they know he'll never admit to it. Santana's disappointment cuts into him more than Azimio's does.

But not nearly as much as Kurt's.

When they're truly satisfied that he isn't going to tell them any more, they leave him alone.

* * *

Lunchtime is Dave's moment of truth. Is the turning point for whether or not he's going to pull off Azimio's prank.

He skips another class to think about what he's going to do, and also because Santana and Kurt really took it out of him. He's starting to feel worthless again and disgusted with himself.

He wallows until ten minutes before lunch starts when he realizes that he hasn't done anything wrong. This is completely unfair. And that makes him mad.

It's ironic that his anger has been the thing that has brought him back to himself, because anger always made him rash and violent.

Maybe he just wasn't getting mad about the right things.

He shows up at his car right at the start of lunch, and no surprise, Azimio is there waiting for him. With half the football team.

"You gonna do it?" Azimio asks as the crowd grows larger.

Dave doesn't answer. He unlocks his car and pulls out the bag of trophies, clenching two of them in his hands. "Who else is coming?"

Azimio shrugs. "I might have told a few people."

Then the Glee club starts appearing in groups, gearing for a fight. Making his grand entrance as the last person on the scene, Mr. Shue races across the parking lot.

"Dude, do it. The fuck are you waiting for?" Azimio eggs him on. The football team leers.

Dave's eyes find Kurt, who looks furious, and Santana, who has surpassed anger altogether and entered into something much calmer and much more deadly.

Dave is trying not to crawl in on him and disappear, because he's starting to feel itchy and tingly. Not a good sign.

He breathes through it.

"Yeah, Z. I'm gonna do it."

Azimio barely has time to grin at him before Dave is turning, handing the trophies over to Mr. Shuester and telling him, "Azimio Adams stole your trophies last night and planted them on me."

Few things take Azimio into a state of rage. Usually things bounce off of him pretty quickly. This is not one of those things. "What?" he roars. "Don't blame your shit on me!"

"Azimio! Language!" Mr. Shuester yells at him, passing the trophies off to an eager Rachel Berry.

"I had nothing to do with this," Azimio protests.

"I don't care! Principal's office! Now!" Who'd have thought, Mr. Shue can actually be authoritative. "Show's over. Everyone go eat your lunch."

Disappointed by the lack of trashed glee memorabilia, the crowd slowly disperses until the only the football team, Kurt, Santana and Mr. Shue remain.

"So it's true," Azimio says, and he's already distancing from Dave and regarding him with disgust.

Azimio could be talking about Dave siding with Glee, or he could be taking about the new rumors about Dave's sexuality, but neither one is going to have a positive influence on his social standing.

Dave swallows past the huge lump in his throat. Kurt watches him anxiously. Santana is carefully indifferent.

_First you have to decide what kind of 'someone' you are. And that means deciding who you want to impress._

"Yeah," Dave says finally. "It's true that I don't want to be your friend anymore."

Azimio's eyes bug out. Some of the footballers snicker. It's not the answer that Kurt was hoping for, but he still feels like cheering.

"Show's over, guys," Mr. Shue cuts in, gesturing for Azimio to follow him to Figgins's office. Azimio is still speechless.

With Azimio gone, the rest of the footballers lumber away.

"You owe me big for cleaning up your locker," Santana says.

Dave raises his eyebrows. "Do I?" He opens his car door and retrieves Santana's coat, tossing it at her while he says, "The next time you get drunk and decide to puke on yourself, you're paying the dry cleaning bill.

"Santana, you were drunk _before_ prom?" Kurt asks.

Santana pulls on her coat and tosses her hair. "Dave's been hoarding my coat for the last two weeks."

Maybe Santana and Dave were closer than Kurt had thought. Maybe they'll be good for each other.

"Thanks, douchebag," Santana says to Dave.

"You're welcome, bitch," he says back.

OK, so Kurt doesn't understand the way they respond to each other, but it seems to work.

Dave is shaky but he's standing. He's only the slightest bit translucent, but he feels solid inside, like puzzle pieces are sliding into place.

There's only one last thing that's been bothering him. He texts Azimio. _How did you get in all those guys cars to swap the CDs? _

It wouldn't surprise him that much if Azimio didn't write back, but he does. He says, _I opened the doors with my fucking hands_

Sounds like Dave isn't the only one with special abilities. That would explain how Azimio broke into the locked school to get the trophies.

Azimio adds one more message: _That was a bitch ass move you pulled. I didnt think you had the balls._

Dave writes to him, _Theres a lot you dont know about me._

There's a lot that Dave doesn't know about himself.

He's going to fix that.


End file.
